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Daily Archives: February 6, 2013

President Obama’s second inaugural was a speech that the Obama Media literally drooled over as a straight forward and forceful expression of progressivism unmatched in American history. I agree, it was, but there was one thing that bothered me… the tendency of these media personalities to ignore the sources of many of the ideas the president expressed so well.

In the interest of fairness and as a debt to history, I think it’s important that we take a minute to give due credit to one of the greatest progressives in history, someone who undoubtedly should be an inspiration and influence to all progressives – former German leader Adolf Hitler, who against strong odds rose to power and fundamentally changed Germany and for a while, the world.

Like our president, Adolf Hitler came from humble beginnings, the son of an Austrian civil servant in Linz whom died when he was fourteen. Some biographers have said that Alois Heidler provided the young Adolf with his first example of government in action and how it could affect people’s lives. Young Hitler’s early years also undoubtedly gave him a sense of the importance of education and how government could strengthen it. As a young student, Adolf Hitler was frequently at odds with his non-unionized teachers, who seemed content to teach by rote and lacked strong support from government.

When Adolf Hitler gravitated to Vienna as a young man to pursue a career as a painter, not only was he influenced by other progressive thinkers like Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Heinrich Gotthard von Treitschke, but also by an extraordinary activist progressive politician, Karl Lueger, the Burgomaster (Mayor) of Vienna, whom Hitler later called ‘a genius’ and claimed as a model. Lueger, whose Christian Socialist Party was organized along many of the same lines that Hitler would later adopt for his National Socialist Party, could best be described as a early practitioner of Saul Alinky’s political ethics, balancing one special interest group against another for his own political advancement. At one point, when some of his anti-Semitic supporters questioned his taking campaign contributions from wealthy Jewish donors, Luegar famously shut them down by telling them that he was the one whom would decide who was a Jew! Lueger is also credited with municipalizing utilities and instituting public transportation in Vienna, along with a number of other shovel ready public works projects.

During this period, Hitler also experienced first hand what happens when government does not institute an adequate social safety net. After falling into dire poverty in Vienna, Hitler was forced to live in a homeless shelter for some time, and later a men’s hostel for the disadvantaged. He remained a socialist and a champion of the 99% ever after, although rejecting pure Marxism as being unworkable and unsuitable to those who favored strong, nationalist views and German exceptionalism.

In WWI, Hitler served in the German Army, suffered combat wounds and was a decorated veteran.

He later decided to truly make a difference in his adopted homeland by entering the public sector via the National Socialist Democratic German Worker’s Party (NSDAP in German, or Nazi using the typical German diminutive).

Hitler, being a spell binding orator and a charismatic speaker soon took over the party and refined its progressive agenda and message. With the exception of calling for a strong military and a renunciation of the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty, two issues unique to that place and time, Hitler and the Nazi’s message hardly sounds out of place in our political climate of today.

The German Hyperinflation and resulting economic crisis of 1921 occurred just as the Party and Adolf Hitler came of political age.

It destroyed the savings of Germany’s middle class, created massive unemployment and was blamed by most Germans on the financial establishment, poor governmental fiscal management, profiteers, and speculators. Or as today’s progressives call them, ‘banksters’, ‘Wall Street’ and the ‘one per cent’.

In this 3 year period, 1921-1923, Hitler’s political star rose as he became a vociferous champion of the middle class and Germany’s 99%. He and the Nazis called for reining in German financial institutions, job creation, making the fat cats pay their fair share and for increased spending on social welfare programs. The main difference in Hitler’s program as opposed to mainstream socialists and communists was his championing of a resurgent German military and his fierce opposition to the restrictions and the huge reparations demanded by the Versailles Treaty. Hitler’s patriotic message, particularly coming from a decorated war hero resonated with a surprising amount of the German people.

The Nazi Party also won friends and influenced people by community organizing. They ran soup kitchens, promoted youth programs and championed the 99% in issues like landlord tenant relations, particularly in their main base of Munich.

And it was in Munich that Adolf Hitler made his first serious political miscalculation, misjudging his popular support in Bavaria with an attempted ‘putsch’, a takeover. It failed, but Hitler’s personal popularity ensured that he received an extraordinarily light sentence of 8 months in comfortable circumstances, where, like a lot of other revolutionary figures, he used the time to refine his message further and wrote his political testament, Mein Kampf (‘My Struggle’).

After he was released in 1924, Hitler used the rest of the 1920’s to consolidate the Nazis and turn them into a nationwide movement. The SA (known colloquially as Brownshirts) were reorganized into an effective force of street activists, Hitler established his own national daily newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, and continued to build his following and spread his message of nationalism mixed with progressive social policies. The Nazi banner is a superb symbol of Hitler’s ideology – the red banner of socialism with the Aryan nationalist symbol of the swastika in the middle.

Several times now I’ve run information on Zakkai, a two-year old boy in the States who had to undergo three surgeries for a fast-growing (albeit benign) tumor against his spine and lungs. The hope and prayer after the last surgery was that this would be the end.

But it was not to be, as tiny nodules that remained on his spine began to grow dangerously again. This coming week, on February 11, Zakkai will again go under the knife. This time the tumors will not just be removed, some tissue around them will be excised as well, right against his spine. His parents, who have several other children, including a nursing baby, are drained and beside themselves.

Please, start praying for Zakkai now, and let’s hope that there will be good news in the days after the surgery:

Rephael Zakkai Avraham ben Yakira Avigael

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How lucky can we get? First Kerry will be here, and then Obama. The president is due, as I understand it, on March 21, although that still seems a bit uncertain. In addition to visiting Jerusalem, he will be stopping in Jordan and Ramallah.

Credit: csmonitor

According to US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, the visit will be sending a message about the “strong and deep connection between both countries.” That’s just lovely. But I want to understand Obama’s motives and goals in visiting now.

There are those who suggest that the timing of the announcement — made while the coalition is in process of being formed — is meant to pressure Netanyahu to go for a more left wing coalition that would be amenable to what Obama is going to propose regarding negotiations. Perish the thought that our prime minister should be that readily influenced by the mere prospect of Obama’s visit. This seems a bit blatant to be the reality.

And in any event, Netanyahu has already declared intention to form a broad based “unity” coalition in order to deal with what’s coming for us with regard to Syria and Iran. He has his own logic.

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That Obama will want to discuss “the two state solution” and a return to the negotiating table is a near certainty. Will he come, as some are saying, with a new “plan”? Not sure. There are denials that this will be so. He would be very foolish to advance concrete suggestions at this time, when matters are so stagnated. He may simply be intending to take the pulse of the situation, offer “encouragement,” both here and with Abbas.

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We have to hope, and send messages with regard to the expectation, that Netanyahu will not be unduly swayed by the president’s “encouragement.” He has got to stand strong in enunciating our rights in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, and be forthright with regard to the security risks we would incur were we to pull back.

That there will be “good will gestures” towards the Palestinian Arabs before Obama arrives is almost a given. That seems to be the way the game is played, no matter how deplorable it is, that we should have to offer “gestures” to an entity that promotes terrorism against us.

Already, the government has decided to release tax revenues collected for the PA that had been withheld because of its unilateral action in the UN, to be applied to a huge electric bill severely in arrears. Whether or not it was yet understood here that Obama was coming, when this decision was made, it is likely that we already knew Kerry was, and that the US was going to start talking about the “peace process” again.

I will not speculate further here on what other “gestures” we might yet see.

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Yet with all of this said and done, the fact is that there are other matters on the agenda besides “peace negotiations” between Israel and the PLO — matters more urgent.

Primary, is Iran, which is inching closer to nuclear capacity.

I have observed several things of late:

In my last posting, I spoke about how Netanyahu told the Cabinet that Iran will be using more efficient centrifuges, which bring their ability to go nuclear closer, and “we cannot live with this.” Pretty definitive.

On the same day, and surely with the prime minister’s sanction, Barak said that, “What happened in Syria several days ago [is] proof that when we [say] something we mean it.”

And so, we are inching very close to action on Iran. It seems implicit at this point.

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At the same time, I have observed that we gave the US heads up on our intention to hit in Syria and took the action with American blessing — even, news reports said, blessing for further attacks of a similar nature. After the attack, Clinton’s words were supportive of our position — there was no hint of criticism.

What it seemed to me is that while Obama has not the courage to act in Syria, he was ultimately pleased that Israel is acting — certainly with regard to chemical weapons and transfer of weapons to Hezbollah.

So there may be a good deal to talk about regarding Syria, as Assad comes closer to falling.

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Even more so, talks between the Israeli and American heads of state may be of critical importance vis-a-vis Iran. Here’s where sending a message about the “strong and deep connection between both countries” becomes important. And here is where the ikar — the essence of the matter — lies.

My own take is that the pattern that has been established with our hits on Syria will continue here.

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I will make one purely tentative prediction here: We may see some movement on “peace negotiations” agreed to by Netanyahu as a quid pro quo for support from Obama on Iran.

In the end, I believe that if we do act on Iran, Obama will not criticize and may well lend some sort of logistical backup. We will do the dirty work. He’ll be clean — having even offered one-on-one discussions with Iran — but will be glad that we did what he should have done but had not the will nor courage to do.

I would not find it terribly upsetting, should Netanyahu make some movement towards negotiations — as long as nothing of significance were to be conceded up front. This is, first, because taking out Iran is of the utmost importance, and two, because whatever we would do would be only a game: Netanyahu knows full well that the Palestinian Arabs are never going to strike a deal with us.

What Netanyahu would be doing would not be cementing a deal with the PA, or even making significant headway in that direction. He would be giving a gift to Obama — lending the impression that the US president had the diplomatic skills, the clout, have it as you will, to influence Israel to be more forthcoming on negotiations.

I could live with this, without finding that my stomach turned upside-down, if a larger and more important goal were served. As, obviously, could our prime minister. In fact this is his MO.

“I think that you can’t start to pick apart anything out of the Bill of Rights without thinking that it’s all going to become undone,” Willis told The Associated Press while promoting his latest action extravaganza, “A Good Day to Die Hard.”

“If you take one out or change one law, then why wouldn’t they take all your rights away from you?” he asked.

The actor adds that he thinks “the real topic is diminished” when people try to blame Hollywood for mass shootings.

“No one commits a crime because they saw a film. There’s nothing to support that,” Willis said. “We’re not making movies about people that have gone berserk, or gone nuts. Those kind of movies wouldn’t last very long at all.”